having decided that a trebuchet isn't going to happen, at least for a while, I decided to have a good at other ways for chucking rocks at things, and went for a pole sling. I.E. a modified staff with a sling attached. This is basically a trebuchet arm that the user swings himself.
Having finally got the oppertunity to test it (at Devons training) the following happened:
1. I swung the thing forward, and the sling released
2. we waited.
3. we waited a bit more…
4. we were still waiting when it began to occur to me that something had gone wrong
5. There was a crashing sound as the shot landed in a tree twenty feet to my right, at about 90 degrees to the direction it was supposed to go.
A bit later with a different sling, with stones weight somewhere around 25g I was about to get maybe 80 yards range (more with a bigger one).
The best bit about the polesling is the whirring sound it makes when the release works properly.
Anyway, I shall hopefully be trying it with a solid rubber ball and some more ammunition tommorrow. I might even hit the target again…
So…. any one else interested in the fine art of primitive seige-slings? (they might even be in period…)
Also any suggestion for safe projectiles to lob at people? I'm geussing that a rubber ball might really hurt…
